Plot
The film story becomes a somewhat illogical tale of living in sin in Paris and Brussels. Considering the flak that the proposed I Married An Angel incurred, it is astounding that Cat raised not one eyebrow. The lively overture is liberally laced with concertina passages and finally a piano theme that continues over the credits into a Brussels café. Composer-music student Victor Florescu (Ramon Novarro) is playing for his supper.
He and the café owner (Paul Porcasi) each feel they have been short-changed. Amidst the ensuing tumult, Victor escapes in a passing military parade whose ever-quickening rhythms carry him from the pursuing restaurateur into a passing taxi. It is, of course, the cab of Shirley Sheridan (Jeanette), who has just arrived in Belgium and is heading for the pension next door to Victor’s. An enthusiastic type, Victor immediately makes love to Shirley. She wisely ignores him.
The cab arrives at their destination and Victor gallantly offers to pay her cab fare. As Shirley sweeps haughtily up the steps of her pension, her suitcase bursts open, strewing her lingerie across the pavement. Victor leaps to her assistance, pocketing a lacy souvenir.
The cabdriver (Henry Armetta) must be paid, and Victor has no money. He offers his hat, his coat, his pants. The driver shakes his head: “They crease in front. I like mine to crease on the sides.” Instead, the driver seizes Victor’s music portfolio, promising to exchange it any time for the twelve francs fare. Victor will have no trouble finding him, the cabby calls as he drives away. His cab “Theresa” has a very distinctive horn.
Disconsolately, Victor enters his pension. His old music teacher, Professor Bertier (Jean Hersholt, the “Dr. Christian” of radio and films), is waiting for Victor in his room with tremendous news. Daudet, the noted music patron, has agreed to listen to Victor’s music. If he likes it, he will commission an operetta. The appointment is at 5:00 that afternoon. And where is Victor’s music? Victor reaches in his pocket and produces a lacy chemise.
He has lost his portfolio, but surely he can remember his own songs. Frantically, he tries to pick out the melodies on the piano as the professor grows more and more angry. They are all wrong. The old professor is heartbroken that Victor has ruined this opportunity with his philandering. He leaves, and Victor settles down at the piano to reconstruct his lost melodies.
His playing is interrupted repeatedly by a rival pianist across the courtyard, playing jazz. They pound away in counterpoint until Victor screams in rage. His tormentor yells back. It is Shirley.
Instantly, Victor is the lover again. He risks life and limb to clamber across to her window. Hanging by one hand, he gallantly offers to return her lacy undies. As his grip loosens Shirley relents and hauls him in. He stays to help her write the song she has been working on, “The Night Was Made for Love.” Wearing a singularly unattractive Adrian frock, Shirley joins Victor in a duet of the lovely song. (Although Adrian would make her one of the best costumed ladies in Hollywood, his heart was obviously not in his work here. He had not yet evolved his bag of tricks for dealing with her singer’s rib cage and muscular but long neck.)
Transported by love, Victor rushes off to get his portfolio back. He will use force if necessary. Racing through the streets of Brussels, he hears the unique horn of “Theresa” and throws himself in front of the cab, begging the driver to return his music. Their argument takes place in the middle of a funeral procession. A top-hatted gentleman leans from one of the carriages and gently chides them for detaining his late uncle. He becomes interested in the dispute and offers to advance Victor the cab fare because he himself likes music. “Do you know why I like music?” “No, why?” “I don’t know. That’s why I asked you.”
With dialogue like that, it must be comedian Charles Butterworth, the wistful count of Love Me Tonight who “fell flat on his flute.” In this epic, he plays “Charles.” He is happy to lend Victor the money since he has become rich at a single stroke. His uncle had the stroke two days ago. Now Charles is looking forward to buying a harp.
Victor has no time for conversation. He exchanges the francs for his precious music, thanks Charles profusely, and darts off. “Not at all,” Charles calls after him. “I hope I have a chance to do a favor for you sometime.”
Outside the conservatory, Victor crashes into a distinguished looking gentleman. They exchange heated words until Professor Bertier introduces the gentleman as Jules Daudet, the man Victor has come to see. “Charmed!” cries Victor instantly, all smiles.
Frank Morgan, Ramon Novarro, Jeanette, Jean Herscholt
Daudet (Frank Morgan) is not charmed. He refuses to stay. Victor mounts the steps and calls after him, “I don’t care!” It doesn’t matter that he has made an enemy or lost his career. He has met the most glorious girl in the whole world! He would not trade all the success, money, and fame in the world for one of her smiles. What do they matter? He has found love! The gathered students burst into applause, and Daudet returns to hear his music.
Victor is playing for Daudet and the entire student body when Shirley arrives. She tries to explain to Professor Bertier that she has come to audition, but everyone keeps shushing her. To see the cause of their intense interest, she climbs on a chair and peeks through a transom. The chair slips and the door crashes open. The startled listeners look up to see a pair of dangling legs and a slim body. Without seeing the rest of Shirley, Daudet decides that this must be why he came to Brussels.
Victor exuberantly introduces Shirley as his fiancée, which she vehemently denies. Daudet absently agrees to produce Victor’s operetta and turns to more important things. What, he asks Shirley, does she want most in life? “Me!” cries Victor. Ignoring him, Shirley explains that she has come to audition and is quickly seated at the piano. She sings “The Night was Made for Love” and then plays “Impressions in a Harlem Flat.” Professor Bertier is unmoved by Shirley’s unclassical approach, but Daudet warmly offers to publish her songs. Shirley wonders if his enthusiasm is entirely professional.
On a dark rainy night, Shirley is alone in her garret playing the piano. A messenger boy (Sterling Holloway) arrives with an enormous bouquet of white roses from Daudet. The note reads: “The night was made for love.” The messenger comments that it seems a stupid message, but he guesses it would be all right if you did it inside. Shirley heaves the roses out the window and returns to her playing. The roof begins to leak in a dozen places and the orchestra echoes the drip, drip as Shirley puts her few bowls around on the floor.
Victor arrives with an armload of pots. He once lived in her room, he tells her, and slept in her bed. The raindrops make a counterpoint as he sings her his new arrangement of their song, “The Night Was Made for Love.” He asks her to be “comrades,” to “live, love, laugh, sing, eat, starve” with him. She is still unconvinced.
A knock is heard at the door. It is Charles, covered with roses (although it is more than five minutes since Shirley threw them out the window). She apologizes, but Charles tells her it could have happened to anyone. If she has a window, he’ll throw them out again. He has come looking for Victor to claim a harp lesson. His harp is downstairs.
“Tomorrow,” Victor pleads, trying to ease him out the door. His efforts are in vain, for suddenly a full operetta chorus of quaint types comes surging in, complete with musical instruments. They sing and dance around the surprisingly spacious garret. Victor has told them that he and Shirley “belong together,” and she ponders this in “She Didn’t Say Yes.”
Daudet arrives in the midst of the tumult and takes Shirley outside onto the shabby landing for a private conversation. Skillfully he makes her an offer and tactfully she refuses. Has he come too late? he inquires. “Perhaps,” she replies. To test Shirley’s affection, Daudet tells Victor he must leave that night for Paris with Daudet in order to have his operetta produced.
In a whirl of “The Night Was Made For Love” (“La Nuit il faut aimer”) sheet music covers and currency, we dissolve to an elegant Paris hotel where Victor and Shirley are living on Shirley’s earnings. Victor awakens Shirley from a lovely dream: that they were so rich that Victor walked around in a golden jacket. “And nothing else?” “I don’t think so,” she replies.
Daudet phones to find out if Shirley will have his song finished that afternoon. Shirley promises, and she and Victor put the finishing touches on “I Watch the Love Parade.”
Victor is unhappy. He can’t work in Paris. Shirley tells him he must go and entertain their guests (left over from the night before?), especially Odette. Odette’s husband is scandalously rich, and she is dying to go back on the stage. Of course, says Shirley, if Victor is unhappy, they can return to Brussels at once. Daudet interrupts them to say their guests are waiting. Victor goes off to find Odette, and Shirley tells their “employer” that she and Victor are returning to Brussels together.
In the drawing room, the sensuous Odette (Vivienne Segal) is vamping Victor, singing his new song, “A New Love Is Old.” Odette introduces Victor to her husband, Rudy (Joseph Cawthorn), who knows only one song: “Pop Goes the Weasel.” Charles offers to play his harp which he has brought with him. “Do you mean to tell me you came here just to play that thing?” Rudy asks. “I thought I’d get a little drunk too,” Charles replies.
Daudet tells Victor that Shirley is inside packing, that she plans to give up her career for Victor. “Are you going to let her wreck her career?” “Why not?” Victor smiles. But he has second thoughts. In Brussels, Shirley would still be supporting him. That’s fine with Shirley, who proposes marriage. Victor panics and plays the compulsory renunciation scene, making Shirley believe he no longer loves her. He then sings “A New Love Is Old,” nearly breaking down.
He is gone, and Shirley wanders disconsolately about the overdecorated suite, listening to the chandelier tinkle in the breeze as the orchestra softly plays “I Watch the Love Parade.” She flings herself sobbing on the bed.
Victor apparently finds time to write his operetta Le Chat et Le Violin (The Cat and the Fiddle), apparently stays in Paris, and apparently is being financed by Odette, for we next see him at a rehearsal, where Odette is singing “Hh! Cha Cha!” Victor is summoned to Odette’s dressing room where she is draped seductively on a chaise lounge. He protests that he respects her husband too much. “Help me,” she croons, holding out her arms. As he is helping her, her husband enters. Assuming the worst, Rudy withdraws his backing and his wife from the show.
The landlord (Frank Conroy) demands immediate payment of the rent in advance to protect himself. Victor gives him a bad check, figuring that if the show is a hit he can make it good. If it is a failure, he might as well be in jail.
He calls the cast together and tells them their salaries may not be forthcoming for awhile. The male lead and the orchestra walk out, but everyone else stays. Charles bemoans the fact that now he won’t be able to afford a new pair of shoes. Lining his old pair with newspapers, he spots an item about Shirley’s engagement to Daudet. He tries to tell Victor, but Victor is on the phone trying to reach Professor Bertier in Brussels. The professor must come to Paris with his students to form the new orchestra.
Charles slips away and calls on Shirley to ask her to replace Odette. Shirley is in the process of moving, and he follows her into a freight elevator. Seating himself at a convenient grand piano, he plays Victor’s new song “Try to Forget.” As the elevator goes up and down over and over, Shirley sings the song and breaks down in tears.
Backstage, Victor is putting the finishing touches on the production for the opening night. He will play the hero, and Charles has called to say he is on his way with a new leading lady. Professor Bertier and his students arrive to complete the company. Charles returns, not with Shirley, but with Mlle. Lotte Lengel (Irene Franklin). “Lotte Lengel!” cries the delighted old professor. “She was a star when I was a child.”
Charles explains to the horrified Victor that it will be necessary to change the story slightly. The heroine will no longer be his sweetheart, but his mother. In despair, Victor decides to cancel the show, but Professor Bertier reminds him of the students. They paid their own way and will be stranded if he lets them down. “Start the overture,” says Victor.
On stage, the chorus is singing “We Belong to the Queen’s Hussars.” Backstage, Mlle. Lengel has a problem. She has been gargling with rum for her sore throat. “I think she swallowed a little of the gargle,” Charles observes. Mlle. Lengel is consumed with self-pity. She is old, she tells Charles, and ugly. She is a grandmother. “Is that so?” says Charles agreeably. “Congratulations.”
From the stage, a familiar voice is heard in song. It is Shirley. She has saved the show. Backstage, she tells Victor that she is still marrying Daudet. This time she will do the walking out. She goes to make her costume change while Victor follows, protesting his love. Daudet is waiting in her dressing room. It is he who insisted Shirley come, so that she wouldn’t feel guilty later. He asks Victor to leave while Shirley is dressing, giving us the anticipated lingerie sequence. Victor is surprised. Has Daudet forgotten what he and Shirley have been to each other? (Hollywood shorthand for s-e-x.) “There’s something about the theatre that’s gotten in my blood,” Charles murmurs as Shirley undresses.
Shirley (Jeanette) returns to save the show for a happy musical finale.
Shirley and Victor begin rehearsing their coming scene, but Victor keeps interjecting his personal pleas. Shirley tears herself away and runs onstage to sing “I’ll Bring You a Song in the Springtime.” (Note that Jeanette’s Adrian-designed costume in the finale was originally made for Joan Crawford for the “Let’s Go Bavarian” number with Fred Astaire in Dancing Lady, 1933.)
The second act curtain rises in three-strip Technicolor on a huge snow-covered tree. (1934 saw the introduction of this advance over the earlier two-strip Technicolor, now capable of registering yellow, red, and purple, in addition to the original blue-greens and red-oranges.) A passerby (Christian Rub) asks Victor if “she” will appear, and he replies sadly that “she” has passed him by. Suddenly “she” does appear and they join in a final duet to the melody of “Poor Pierrot.” The snow magically melts, and the tree blossoms with lush green leaves and pink blossoms. The music surges to a climax, and we assume the lovers live happily, one way or another, ever after. |
